


Claude and Cutter's Big Adventure

by fredbassett



Series: Stephen/Ryan series [97]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 17:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5834293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cutter really doesn’t want to risk a Labrador ending up in the fossil record.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Claude and Cutter's Big Adventure

“There’s no sign of it anywhere,” Lyle reported.

“Professor?” Ryan said. The final call would be taken by Cutter, but Ryan was not exactly ecstatic at the thought of babysitting a trip to the other side of an anomaly just because some idiot had failed to keep their bloody Labrador on a lead.

They’d cleared the area as soon as they’d arrived, shooing all and sundry out of the nature reserve on the pretext that there had been a large cat sighting in the area. Naturally, everyone thought it was bollocks, but that didn’t matter. They could take any amount of egg on face afterwards, but for now they just needed to make sure the general public stayed well out of the way.

“We can’t afford a ruddy Labrador turning up in the fossil record,” Cutter said. “Connor, how long do you think the anomaly’s good for?”

Connor shrugged. “It’s pretty strong. Good for two to three hours, I think.”

“That should be long enough.” Cutter turned back, an almost apologetic look on his face. “Let’s make this as quick as we can. Connor, you stay here and keep an eye on the readings. If they start to drop, send someone after us immediately. Ryan, I want you and two of your men, plus Stephen, to track it and Abby to tranquilise it if necessary.”

Ryan nodded and within five minutes, he was taking point through the anomaly, with Finn and Kermit a step behind.

It was like walking fully clothed into a sauna. The heat enveloped Ryan from all sides and sweat sprung out all over his body. His feet squelched into soft, swampy ground and all around them huge fir trees rose up into a dark sky, the colour of a bruised plum.

“High oxygen levels,” Cutter announced, looking down at the compact, air test meter in his hand.

“And that means…?” Ryan prompted.

“We can tolerate elevated oxygen levels,” Cutter said. “But try not to fire your weapons. The chances of starting a fire are pretty high.” He checked the meter again and added, “The CO2 levels are up as well, so you might start to feel breathless and light-headed. We need to find the dog and get out of here as fast as we can.”

Ryan stared down at the water ponding around his feet and the swamp that stretched away between the trees as far as the eye could see. It looked the least likely place he’d ever seen to be a fire risk. The air felt positively thick with water.

“Carboniferous?” Stephen hazarded.

Cutter nodded. “Aye, looks like it.”

“So that means we’re in something like 35% oxygen,” Stephen said. “The muzzle flash from a rife could easily set off a forest fire. In these conditions there’s going to be one burning somewhere pretty much all the time. That’s why the sky’s that colour.”

“So what are we likely to face?” Ryan was wracking his brains for some facts from Cutter’s lectures, but the Carboniferous was remaining a stubborn blank in his memory.

“Bloody great big dragonflies!” Finn announced.

“Go to the top of the class, lad.” Cutter gave the young soldier an amused look. “Big amphibians as well. There’s probably not that much around that’ll bother us, but we do need to find that damned dog.”

Stephen was already down on one knew examining the soft ground surface. “It definitely came through.” He pointed to his left, towards a dense patch of ferns over-hung with something that looked like giant catkins.

Abby stuck two fingers in her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. “Claude!”

“Claude?” Finn queried.

“I didn’t name it,” Abby retorted.

“What’s wrong with Fido?” Kermit asked, his rifle cradled across his chest as he kept watch around them.

“When did you last come across a dog called Fido?” Finn said. “They’ve all got fancy names now. There’s two yappy little sods in our road called Colin and Brian.”

Abby rolled her eyes and called out the dog’s name again. It did precisely as much good this time as it had done the time before.

Stephen started to follow the tracks. Ryan nodded to the others to follow him. With Abby whistling and calling for the dog, they moved slowly off, the swamp sucking at their boots with every step.

The warm, humid air was redolent with the smell of rotting vegetation. The trees and ferns rose up around them in a profusion of unfamiliar sights and even more unfamiliar smells. The trees were huge, even bigger than the giant redwoods that Ryan had seen on a trip to Kew Gardens with Stephen. Some of the trees were heavily-laden with cones and even more had dropped on the ground to mingle with the damp mass between their feet.

Some distance away, Ryan could hear the drone of insects in the air and then without warning, something swooped down in the air in front of them.

“Hold your fire!” he yelled as Finn and Kermit swung their rifles up to their shoulders. “Fingers off the fucking trigger, now!”

A dragonfly with a two metre wingspan danced in the air in front of them, its paper-thin wings an iridescent riot of colour. They all stood stock still and waited for it to move off. A second one fluttered out of the trees and the two whirled together in the air, paying no attention whatsoever to the intruders in their domain. Watching them warily for any sign of threat, Ryan quickly gave the signal to move off again.

With Stephen now taking point and Abby at his side, alternately whistling and calling the dog’s name, they made their way slowly through the dense vegetation. Each step disturbed the cloying swamp, releasing an odour of boiled cabbage and Friday night farts.

“Told you not to eat that egg sarnie for lunch, mate,” Kermit muttered to Finn.

Finn flipped him the finger in return.

“Where’s that bloody beastie got to?” Cutter said in irritation as another dragonfly buzzed overhead.

Right on cue a loud bark came from the other side of a dense clump of ferns.

“Claude!” Abby yelled in a voice that made Ryan want to plonk his arse on the floor and beg for a treat. He just hoped it was having the same effect on the wretched Labrador.

A sudden flurry amongst the foliage saw all three soldiers with their fingers on the trigger, but what burst out of the verdant ferns was probably the muddiest dog Ryan had ever had the misfortune to meet. He had absolutely no idea what colour the animal had been to start with, but at the moment it was what could only be described as swamp brown, which was probably not a colour that had ever been seen at Crufts.

The dog ignored Abby and went bouncing up to Cutter, mud flying everywhere as it romped through the undergrowth, panting heavily, clearly delighted to have someone knew to play with.

Cutter managed to rise to the occasion and deliver a pat on the head. The dog sat at his feet, tailing wagging madly.

“He likes you, Prof!” Finn commented.

Abby held up a finger warningly to Cutter. “If you make any mention of dogs recognising an alpha male, I might have to kill you…”

Cutter grinned. “Never crossed my mind. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Finn pulled a length of cord out of his pocket, tied it to the dog’s collar and handed the end to Abby.

With Kermit and Stephen at the head of the group, they started to make their way back towards the anomaly. Cutter walked behind them staring around him, clearly desperate to imprint every moment of their time there on his mind. No matter how many anomalies he’d travelled through, Cutter had never lost that sense of wide-eyed wonder that Ryan had seen in him on their trip to the Permian.

The professor turned, about to say something, when his voice was drowned out by a sudden rumble of thunder. The dog whimpered in fright and tried to pull away, but Abby had firm hold of his lead, gentling him with a soft word. A bright flash and a load crack came a second later, followed by a flare of flame about 20 metres ahead, between them and the anomaly.

“We need to get out of here!” Stephen ordered as all around them the foliage started to burn.

Ryan stared in horrified fascination as damp vegetation did the seemingly impossible and started to burn with the rapidity of a tinder-dry heath. Then, following Stephen’s lead, he started to move, but the swamp sucked at his boots, slowing him down, forcing him to pick his feet up high and making any rapid progress impossible. The fire was spreading faster than they were capable of moving, consuming the ferns and turning them into a wall of impenetrable flame.

Stephen turned away, seeking a new route, heading towards the less dense parts of the swamp where the fire couldn’t quite so easily jump the distance from one tree to another. Ahead, a forest of tall horsetail ferns was now all that stood between them and the way back to their own time, but the fire was spreading faster than they were making progress, as they had to clamber over fallen trees and other obstacles as the carboniferous forest started the slow process of rotting down and turning into coal.

In terrain like this, Abby was at a distinct disadvantage due to her diminutive size, making it harder for her to clamber over the thick tree trunks lying half in, half out of the morass underfoot. Cutter saw her difficulty and grabbed the dog’s makeshift lead to allow her the use of both hands. With the danger of fire all around them, she surrendered charge of the animal without a word of protest.

The dog hurdled a fallen trunk in its eagerness to get away from the rapidly-spreading flames and Cutter followed, with Ryan bringing up the rear. His rifle now slung over his back, Ryan used both hands to vault the thick bole of a once-tall conifer. Underneath his boot, something shifted. He fought for balance but lost, going sprawling in the muck. A moment later, he felt himself being pushed upwards as something rose up underneath him, knocking him back against the dead tree.

A long snout opened, displaying rows of sharp teeth.

Ryan rolled away, yelling a warning. He reached for his Glock, balancing the danger of igniting a further blaze with the clear and present danger of a pair of fucking great big jaws set in a heavy, rounded hear snapping all too close to his bollocks.

“No!” Cutter yelled. “It only eats fish!”

“How the fuck do you know that?” Ryan yelled back, pointing his pistol at the creature.

“Because I’m a palaeontologist!” Cutter retorted. “It’s an Ophiacodon and it eats fish and small vertebrates, so stick that penis-substitute away and let’s get moving. Trust me, Ryan!”

And, in spite of the ugly fucker about the size of an adult crocodile that was currently giving him a very toothy grin, Ryan did trust the man, although he drew the line at holstering his Glock.

Claude the Labrador chose that particular moment to let loose a volley of barks.

The creature slithered around in the swamp and headed away from the flames, paying no further attention to Ryan.

Stephen turned, checked everyone’s progress, and veered to the left, around a patch of horsetails that were already starting to smoulder. Warier now of things that looked like logs, Ryan picked up the pace again as best he could. Smoke was drifting around them in thick coils, but his lover seemed confident of his route finding.

Skirting the edge of the forest fire, Stephen led them unerringly back to the safety of the anomaly. Finn and Kermit hung back as Abby dived through the gently coruscating light, closely followed by Cutter and Claude. Stephen waited for Ryan to catch up and then they went through together, followed by the other two.

The firm ground beneath his feet was a welcome change to the soft mud of the swamp. Ryan took a lungful of fresher air and then bent over, coughing. The smell of the fetid mud clung to the wet material of his combat trousers in the same way as the damp material clung to his legs. Ryan was bloody glad that he had a complete change of clothes in the van.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to find an approving smile on Cutter’s face. “Well done, that can’t have been easy,” Cutter said.

“It wasn’t,” Ryan admitted. “But you’re not usually wrong about the creatures.”

Cutter clapped him on the shoulder. At his side, Claude jumped up and bestowed a very slobbery kiss on Ryan’s cheek.

“No tongues!” Ryan pushed the dog gently off.

“Not sure which of you smells worse,” Connor said, grinning widely.

Ryan ran a hand down his thigh and flicked the mud at Connor. It seemed like a wholly reasonable and proportionate response to him.

And his inner 12-year-old felt better for it.


End file.
